Today on BRStv 52 FAQ, we’re talking fish food and auto feeders
Hi, I’m RT, one of your hosts of BRStv, with another episode of 52 FAQs, where each
week we answer your frequently asked questions from our popular 52 Weeks of Reefing series.
This week we are answering Mike Ferrara’s question from week 39: “What's your favorite
food to use with auto feeders for fish & corals?”
Auto feeders are a pretty cool addition to any reef because they remove one more maintenance
step from the tank, as well as automate things while you are gone on trips, or other times
when you cannot be there to watch your aquarium.
That being said, they are also one of the few gadgets that has the potential to crash
your aquarium.
For some reason, many reefers often end up feeding significantly more food per day with
an automatic feeder, than they would by hand and rarely consider the need to also increase
their nutrient reduction methods like water changes to handle the increased nutrient load.
This usually results in algae problems and other nutrient related issues that can overwhelm
the hobbyist and his tank.
So the biggest issue is finding the right type of food for your feeder; where it’s
emitted in a consistent manor and the same amount is added each day.
Its super easy to hate on auto feeders because it seems the difference between the quantity
settings is just a tiny amount of food versus a ridiculous amount.
This is a component of a few things; the size of the opening for that setting, the size
of the food itself, and in addition to that, the amount of times it adds food a day.
There are three main feeders we sell and this is my general take on all of them; Hydor’s
Ekomixo works, but it’s the loudest by far, the adjustments are a bit more fussy, and
the mounting is a couple pieces of Velcro so it’s not my favorite.
The ehiem is dead silent and the quietest of the three, is the most affordable, and
comes with a proper screw on bracket which makes it the most popular.
However, the quantity setting is not quite as adjustable as you might like and is a bit
more finicky on pellet size.
For instance it works great on the smaller hikari foods like seaweed extreme and the
marine S pellet, as well as medium size pellets like Neptune's cross over diet; all of which
are pretty popular around here.
However the larger hikari A pellet either gets stuck or pours in too much; it’s just
the wrong size pellet for this feeder.
The intellifeed from lifeguard, which shares a lot of similarities with the neptune Automatic
Feeding System is a bit louder than the ehiem, but much quieter than the ekomixo.
It has the most programing options, the best bracket, and In my opinion the best quantity
adjustment as well, but it’s also twice the cost.
and like the rest of them you don't always get the desired amount dispensed with a single
rotation, so food selection is still important.
So beyond typical nutritional facts there are a variety of things I would look for in
a food which is going to be used with an auto feeder.
The biggest component is a consistent size and shape that flows through the opening of
the feeder the same way every time.
For that reason I would skip inconstant sized flake foods and focus on pellets.
The pellet sizes should ideally be very consistent in size and shape, which generally is going
to come from the larger manufactures like Hikari, but Neptune’s crossover diet is
an awesome choice as well because the size and shape is very consistent, and is designed
to feed both your fish and corals.
I’d also try and avoid foods that float and go down the overflow, and in fact I would
almost always couple an auto feeder with a solid feeding ring.
The feeding ring will help make sure the food added to the tank is actually eaten which
will allow you to add less overall.
My favorite are the types from innovative marine or skimz that go below the water surface.
you have probably caught on to this already but generally speaking, I think the foods
that work best in auto feeders are those medium sized pellets from neptune or the smaller
pellets from hikari like the marine S and seaweed extreme.
These are just some of the foods that seem to dispense most evenly and consistently with
auto feeders.
In general I’d say the smaller sized foods are better than large foods.
The larger foods are just way more finicky about requiring the exact right size opening
in the feeder to dispense properly.
A Few other tips; avoid mixing foods because they almost always have different sizes and
wont dispense evenly, but if you must be really critical of their size.
The two hikari foods with the S and seaweed extreme work very well together.
The sea weed extreme is particularly awesome; when we feed the BRS160 I see the tangs often
going after these pellets before the frozen Canadian mysis which is pretty impressive.
Fish almost always prefer natural frozen foods over pellets, particularly mysis which almost
every fish goes after aggressively.
Id also avoid foods with high moisture contents because they can mold in humid environments
like this.
So even though everyone loves the soft foods from fauna marin, they are probably not the
best choice for an auto feeder.
Hopefully we helped answer some questions for those of you who are looking for the perfect
food for your feeder, give us a quick thumbs up and if you are looking for a more complete
look on feeding checkout Week 41: Feeding fish - Selecting food for maximum health & longevity.
if you have any questions or tips for either us or the BRS community let us know in the
comments area down below.
In this week’s poll we are asking all of you your preferred method of feeding is, so
please vote and check out the results to see what others are doing.
I’ll see you in the next BRS 52 FAQ where we answer John Phelan’s question from Week
38 “How do you remove the coral frags from their plugs to get such a small coral to place
in the tank?”